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GM Orders Immediate Halt to New Corvettes and Other Vehicles Shipping On Jack Cooper Transports - Corvette: Sales, News & Lifestyle
GM has ordered an immediate stop and has even unloaded new Corvettes at the Assembly Plant from Jack Cooper trucks as the transport company seeks a new deal.
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If you’re waiting on your new 2025 Corvette to be delivered, you can thank Ford Motor Company for the delay.
Thursday afternoon, General Motors ordered drivers for its long-time car shipper, Jack Cooper Transport, to unload the new Corvettes that had just been placed onboard the haulers outside the Bowling Green Assembly Plant in Kentucky.
“I stood there and saw them unload 50 cars from the trucks – they have never done that before,” the Detroit Free Press was told by a plant employee who asked to remain anonymous because they did not have permission to talk to reporters.
GM’s contract with Jack Cooper is currently being renegotiated after its No. 2 customer Ford Motor Company unexpectedly canceled its 40-year-long deal with the shipping company in January, forcing Jack Cooper to try to get more money from its other customers to stay afloat.
According to the Free Press, while No. 1 customer GM remains in “intense” renegotiations with Jack Cooper, it has apparently decided it cannot risk having thousands of its new vehicles, like the Corvettes made in Bowling Green, to be onboard the trucks, in case the talks were to go bad.
“Jack Cooper Transport has been a preferred supplier to GM for decades,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly told the Free Press on Thursday. “We are negotiating in good faith with their management team and private equity lender, Cerberus Capital Management. We hope to reach a fair resolution that permits GM to run our business responsibly and serve our customers while allowing (Jack Cooper) to continue operating as an ongoing business and employer.”
The sudden decision by Ford to exercise a clause that allowed the cancellation of the contract with Jack Cooper at its discretion has already forced the trucking company to lay off about 400 workers at a Missouri facility and permanently close a facility with 89 more employers in Michigan. The Teamsters Union, which represents many of those workers, has vowed to fight for their jobs.
Sources tell the Free Press that Ford has not given a reason to Jack Cooper for ending the deal before it was set to expire, prompting Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri to ask Ford CEO Jim Farley to provide an “explanation for suddenly terminating such a longstanding partnership.”
